Section 1. Developments of
Doctrine to be Expected

{55} 1. IF Christianity is a fact, and impresses an idea of
itself on our minds and is a subject-matter of exercises
of the reason, that idea will in course of time expand
into a multitude of ideas, and aspects of ideas,
connected and harmonious with one another, and in
themselves determinate and immutable, as is the objective
fact itself which is thus represented. It is a
characteristic of our minds, that they cannot take an
object in, which is submitted to them simply and
integrally. We conceive by means of definition or
description; whole objects do not create in the intellect
whole ideas, but are, to use a mathematical phrase,
thrown into series, into a number of statements,
strengthening, interpreting, correcting each other, and
with more or less exactness approximating, as they
accumulate, to a perfect image. There is no other way of
learning or of teaching. We cannot teach except by
aspects or views, which are not identical with the thing
itself which we are teaching. Two persons may each convey
the same truth to a third, yet by methods and through
representations {56} altogether different. The same person
will treat the same argument differently in an essay or
speech, according to the accident of the day of writing,
or of the audience, yet it will be substantially the
same.

And the more claim an idea has to be considered
living, the more various will be its aspects; and the
more social and political is its nature, the more
complicated and subtle will be its issues, and the longer
and more eventful will be its course. And in the number
of these special ideas, which from their very depth and
richness cannot be fully understood at once, but are more
and more clearly expressed and taught the longer they
last,having aspects many and bearings many,
mutually connected and growing one out of another, and
all parts of a whole, with a sympathy and correspondence
keeping pace with the ever-changing necessities of the
world, multiform, prolific, and ever
resourceful,among these great doctrines surely we
Christians shall not refuse a foremost place to
Christianity. Such previously to the determination of the
fact, must be our anticipation concerning it from a
contemplation of its initial achievements.

2.

It may be objected that its inspired documents at once
determine the limits of its mission without further
trouble; but ideas are in the writer and reader of the
revelation, not the inspired text itself: and the
question is whether those ideas which the letter conveys
from writer to reader, reach the reader at once in their
completeness and accuracy on his first perception of
them, or whether they open out in his intellect and grow
to perfection in the course of time. Nor could it surely
be maintained without extravagance that the letter of the
New Testament, or of any assignable number of books,
comprises a delineation of all possible {57} forms which a
divine message will assume when submitted to a multitude
of minds.

Nor is the case altered by supposing that inspiration
provided in behalf of the first recipients of the
Revelation, what the Divine fiat effected for herbs and
plants in the beginning, which were created in maturity.
Still, the time at length came, when its recipients
ceased to be inspired; and on these recipients the
revealed truths would fall, as in other cases, at first
vaguely and generally, though in spirit and in truth, and
would afterwards be completed by developments.

Nor can it fairly be made a difficulty that thus to
treat of Christianity is to level it in some sort to
sects and doctrines of the world, and to impute to it the
imperfections which characterize the productions of man.
Certainly it is a sort of degradation of a divine work to
consider it under an earthly form; but it is no
irreverence, since our Lord Himself, its Author and
Guardian, bore one also. Christianity differs from other
religions and philosophies, in what is superadded to
earth from heaven; not in kind, but in origin; not in its
nature, but in its personal characteristics; being
informed and quickened by what is more than intellect, by
a divine spirit. It is externally what the Apostle calls
an "earthen vessel," being the religion of men.
And, considered as such, it grows "in wisdom and
stature;" but the powers which it wields, and the
words which proceed out of its mouth, attest its
miraculous nativity.

Unless then some special ground of exception can be
assigned, it is as evident that Christianity, as a
doctrine and worship, will develope in the minds of
recipients, as that it conforms in other respects, in its
external propagation or its political framework, to the
general methods by which the course of things is carried
forward. {58}

3.

2. Again, if Christianity be an universal religion,
suited not simply to one locality or period, but to all
times and places, it cannot but vary in its relations and
dealings towards the world around it, that is, it will
develope. Principles require a very various application
according as persons and circumstances vary, and must be
thrown into new shapes according to the form of society
which they are to influence. Hence all bodies of
Christians, orthodox or not, develope the doctrines of
Scripture. Few but will grant that Luther's view of
justification had never been stated in words before his
time: that his phraseology and his positions were novel,
whether called for by circumstances or not. It is equally
certain that the doctrine of justification defined at
Trent was, in some sense, new also. The refutation and
remedy of errors cannot precede their rise; and thus the
fact of false developments or corruptions involves the
correspondent manifestation of true ones. Moreover, all
parties appeal to Scripture, that is, argue from
Scripture; but argument implies deduction, that is,
development. Here there is no difference between early
times and late, between a Pope ex cathedrâ and an
individual Protestant, except that their authority is not
on a par. On either side the claim of authority is the
same, and the process of development.

Accordingly, the common complaint of Protestants
against the Church of Rome is, not simply that she has
added to the primitive or the Scriptural doctrine, (for
this they do themselves,) but that she contradicts it,
and moreover imposes her additions as fundamental truths
under sanction of an anathema. For themselves they deduce
by quite as subtle a method, and act upon doctrines as
implicit and on reasons as little analyzed in time past,
as Catholic schoolmen. What prominence has the Royal
Supremacy in the New {59} Testament, or the lawfulness of
bearing arms, or the duty of public worship, or the
substitution of the first day of the week for the
seventh, or infant baptism, to say nothing of the
fundamental principle that the Bible and the Bible only
is the religion of Protestants? These doctrines and
usages, true or not, which is not the question here, are
surely not gained by the direct use and immediate
application of Scripture, nor by a mere exercise of
argument upon words and sentences placed before the eyes,
but by the unconscious growth of ideas suggested by the
letter and habitual to the mind.

4.

3. And, indeed, when we turn to the consideration of
particular doctrines on which Scripture lays the greatest
stress, we shall see that it is absolutely impossible for
them to remain in the mere letter of Scripture, if they
are to be more than mere words, and to convey a definite
idea to the recipient. When it is declared that "the
Word became flesh," three wide questions open upon
us on the very announcement. What is meant by "the
Word," what by "flesh," what by
"became"? The answers to these involve a
process of investigation, and are developments. Moreover,
when they have been made, they will suggest a series of
secondary questions; and thus at length a multitude of
propositions is the result, which gather round the
inspired sentence of which they come, giving it
externally the form of a doctrine, and creating or
deepening the idea of it in the mind.

It is true that, so far as such statements of
Scripture are mysteries, they are relatively to us but
words, and cannot be developed. But as a mystery implies
in part what is incomprehensible or at least unknown, so
does it in part imply what is not so; it implies a
partial manifestation; or a representation by economy.
Because then {60} it is in a measure understood, it can so far
be developed, though each result in the process will
partake of the dimness and confusion of the original
impression.

5.

4. This moreover should be considered,that great
questions exist in the subject-matter of which Scripture
treats, which Scripture does not solve; questions too so
real, so practical, that they must be answered, and,
unless we suppose a new revelation, answered by means of
the revelation which we have, that is, by development.
Such is the question of the Canon of Scripture and its
inspiration: that is, whether Christianity depends upon a
written document as Judaism;if so, on what writings
and how many;whether that document is
self-interpreting, or requires a comment, and whether any
authoritative comment or commentator is
provided;whether the revelation and the document
are commensurate, or the one outruns the other;all
these questions surely find no solution on the surface of
Scripture, nor indeed under the surface in the case of
most men, however long and diligent might be their study
of it. Nor were these difficulties settled by authority,
as far as we know, at the commencement of the religion;
yet surely it is quite conceivable that an Apostle might
have dissipated them all in a few words, had Divine
Wisdom thought fit. But in matter of fact the decision
has been left to time, to the slow process of thought, to
the influence of mind upon mind, the issues of
controversy, and the growth of opinion.

6.

To take another instance just now referred to:if
there was a point on which a rule was desirable from the
first, it was concerning the religious duties under which
Christian parents lay as regards their children. It would
be {61} natural indeed in any Christian father, in the absence
of a rule, to bring his children for baptism; such in
this instance would be the practical development of his
faith in Christ and love for his offspring; still a
development it is,necessarily required, yet, as far
as we know, not provided for his need by direct precept
in the Revelation as originally given.

Another very large field of thought, full of practical
considerations, yet, as far as our knowledge goes, but
only partially occupied by any Apostolical judgment, is
that which the question of the effects of Baptism opens
upon us. That they who came in repentance and faith to
that Holy Sacrament received remission of sins, is
undoubtedly the doctrine of the Apostles; but is there
any means of a second remission for sins committed after
it? St. Paul's Epistles, where we might expect an answer
to our inquiry, contain no explicit statement on the
subject; what they do plainly say does not diminish the
difficulty:viz., first, that baptism is intended
for the pardon of sins before it, not in prospect; next,
that those who have received the gift of Baptism in fact
live in a state of holiness, not of sin. How do
statements such as these meet the actual state of the
Church as we see it at this day?

Considering that it was expressly predicted that the Kingdom of Heaven, like the fisher's net, should
gather of every kind, and that the tares should grow with
the wheat until the harvest, a graver and more practical
question cannot be imagined than that which it has
pleased the Divine Author of the Revelation to leave
undecided, unless indeed there be means given in that
Revelation of its own growth or development. As far as
the letter goes of the inspired message, every one who
holds that Scripture is the rule of faith, as all
Protestants do, must allow that "there is not one of
us but has exceeded by transgression its revealed Ritual,
and finds himself in consequence {62} thrown upon those
infinite resources of Divine Love which are stored in
Christ, but have not been drawn out into form in the
appointments of the Gospel." [Note 1] Since then Scripture needs
completion, the question is brought to this issue,
whether defect or inchoateness in its doctrines be or be
not an antecedent probability in favour of a development
of them.

7.

There is another subject, though not so immediately
practical, on which Scripture does not, strictly
speaking, keep silence, but says so little as to require,
and so much as to suggest, information beyond its
letter,the intermediate state between death and the
Resurrection. Considering the long interval which
separates Christ's first and second coming, the millions of faithful souls who are waiting it out, and the
intimate concern which every Christian has in the
determination of its character, it might have been
expected that Scripture would have spoken explicitly
concerning it, whereas in fact its notices are but brief
and obscure. We might indeed have argued that this
silence of Scripture was intentional, with a view of
discouraging speculations upon the subject, except for
the circumstance that, as in the question of our
post-baptismal state, its teaching seems to proceed upon
an hypothesis inapplicable to the state of the Church
after the time when it was delivered. As Scripture
contemplates Christians, not as backsliders, but as
saints, so does it apparently represent the Day of
Judgment as immediate, and the interval of expectation as
evanescent. It leaves on our minds the general impression
that Christ was returning on earth at once, "the
time short," worldly engagements superseded by
"the present distress," persecutors urgent,
Christians, as a body, sinless and expectant, without
home, without plan for the future, looking up to {63} heaven.
But outward circumstances have changed, and with the
change, a different application of the revealed word has
of necessity been demanded, that is, a development. When
the nations were converted and offences abounded, then
the Church came out to view, on the one hand as a
temporal establishment, on the other as a remedial
system, and passages of Scripture aided and directed the
development which before were of inferior account. Hence
the doctrine of Penance as the complement of Baptism, and
of Purgatory as the explanation of the Intermediate
State. So reasonable is this expansion of the original
creed, that, when some ten years since the true doctrine
of Baptism was expounded among us without any mention of
Penance, our teacher was accused by many of us of
Novatianism; while, on the other hand, heterodox divines
have before now advocated the doctrine of the sleep of
the soul because they said it was the only successful
preventive of belief in Purgatory.

8.

Thus developments of Christianity are proved to have
been in the contemplation of its Divine Author, by an
argument parallel to that by which we infer intelligence
in the system of the physical world. In whatever sense
the need and its supply are a proof of design in the
visible creation, in the same do the gaps, if the word
may be used, which occur in the structure of the original
creed of the Church, make it probable that those
developments, which grow out of the truths which lie
around it, were intended to fill them up.

Nor can it be fairly objected that in thus arguing we
are contradicting the great philosopher, who tells us,
that "upon supposition of God affording us light and
instruction by revelation, additional to what He has
afforded us by reason and experience, we are in no sort
judges by what {64} methods, and in what proportion, it were
to be expected that this supernatural light and
instruction would be afforded us," [Note 2] because he is speaking of our
judging before a revelation is given. He observes that
"we have no principles of reason upon which to judge
beforehand, how it were to be expected Revelation
should have been left, or what was most suitable to the
divine plan of government," in various respects; but
the case is altogether altered when a Revelation is
vouchsafed, for then a new precedent, or what he calls
"principle of reason," is introduced, and from
what is actually put into our hands we can form a
judgment whether more is to be expected. Butler, indeed,
as a well-known passage of his work shows, is far from
denying the principle of progressive development.

9.

5. The method of revelation observed in Scripture
abundantly confirms this anticipation. For instance,
Prophecy, if it had so happened, need not have afforded a
specimen of development; separate predictions might have
been made to accumulate as time went on, prospects might
have opened, definite knowledge might have been given, by
communications independent of each other, as St. John's
Gospel or the Epistles of St. Paul are unconnected with
the first three Gospels, though the doctrine of each
Apostle is a development of their matter. But the
prophetic Revelation is, in matter of fact, not of this
nature, but a process of development: the earlier
prophecies are pregnant texts out of which the succeeding
announcements grow; they are types. It is not that first
one truth is told, then another; but the whole truth or
large portions of it are told at once, yet only in their
rudiments, or in miniature, and they are expanded and
finished in their parts, as the course of revelation
proceeds. {65} The Seed of the woman was to bruise the
serpent's head; the sceptre was not to depart from Judah
till Shiloh came, to whom was to be the gathering of the
people. He was to be Wonderful, Counsellor, the Prince of
Peace. The question of the Ethiopian rises in the
reader's mind, "Of whom speaketh the Prophet
this?" Every word requires a comment. Accordingly,
it is no uncommon theory with unbelievers, that the
Messianic idea, as they call it, was gradually developed
in the minds of the Jews by a continuous and traditional
habit of contemplating it, and grew into its full
proportions by a mere human process; and so far seems
certain, without trenching on the doctrine of
inspiration, that the books of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus
are developments of the writings of the Prophets,
expressed or elicited by means of current ideas in the
Greek philosophy, and ultimately adopted and ratified by
the Apostle in his Epistle to the Hebrews.

10.

But the whole Bible, not its prophetical portions
only, is written on the principle of development. As the
Revelation proceeds, it is ever new, yet ever old. St.
John, who completes it, declares that he writes no
"new commandment unto his brethren," but an old
commandment which they "had from the
beginning." And then he adds, "A new
commandment I write unto you." The same test of
development is suggested in our Lord's words on the
Mount, as has already been noticed, "Think not that
I am come to destroy the Law and the Prophets; I am not
come to destroy, but to fulfil." He does not
reverse, but perfect, what has gone before. Thus with
respect to the evangelical view of the rite of sacrifice,
first the rite is enjoined by Moses; next Samuel says,
"to obey is better than sacrifice;" then Hosea,
"I will have mercy and not sacrifice;" Isaiah,
"Incense is an abomination {66} unto me;" then
Malachi, describing the times of the Gospel, speaks of
the "pure offering" of wheatflour; and our
Lord completes the development, when He speaks of
worshipping "in spirit and in truth." If there
is anything here left to explain, it will be found in the
usage of the Christian Church immediately afterwards,
which shows that sacrifice was not removed, but truth and
spirit added.

Nay, the effata of our Lord and His Apostles
are of a typical structure, parallel to the prophetic
announcements above mentioned, and predictions as well as
injunctions of doctrine. If then the prophetic sentences
have had that development which has really been given
them, first by succeeding revelations, and then by the
event, it is probable antecedently that those doctrinal,
political, ritual, and ethical sentences, which have the
same structure, should admit the same expansion. Such
are, "This is My Body," or "Thou art
Peter, and upon this flock I will build My Church,"
or "The meek shall inherit the earth," or
"Suffer little children to come unto Me," or
"The pure in heart shall see God."

11.

On this character of our Lord's teaching, the
following passage may suitably be quoted from a writer
already used. "His recorded words and works when on
earth ... come to us as the declarations of a Lawgiver.
In the Old Covenant, Almighty God first of all spoke the
Ten Commandments from Mount Sinai, and afterwards wrote
them. So our Lord first spoke His own Gospel, both of
promise and of precept, on the Mount, and His Evangelists
have recorded it. Further, when He delivered it, He spoke
by way of parallel to the Ten Commandments. And His
style, moreover, corresponds to the authority which He
assumes. It is of that solemn, measured, and severe
character, which {67} bears on the face of it tokens of its
belonging to One who spake as none other man could speak.
The Beatitudes, with which His Sermon opens, are an
instance of this incommunicable style, which befitted, as
far as human words could befit, God Incarnate.

"Nor is this style peculiar to the Sermon on the
Mount. All through the Gospels it is discernible,
distinct from any other part of Scripture, showing itself
in solemn declarations, canons, sentences, or sayings,
such as legislators propound, and scribes and lawyers
comment on. Surely everything our Saviour did and said is
characterized by mingled simplicity and mystery. His
emblematical actions, His typical miracles, His parables,
His replies, His censures, all are evidences of a
legislature in germ, afterwards to be developed, a code
of divine truth which was ever to be before men's eyes,
to be the subject of investigation and interpretation,
and the guide in controversy. 'Verily, verily, I say unto
you,''But, I say unto you,'are the tokens of
a supreme Teacher and Prophet.

"And thus the Fathers speak of His teaching. 'His
sayings,' observes St. Justin, 'were short and concise;
for He was no rhetorician, but His word was the power of
God.' And St. Basil, in like manner, 'Every deed and
every word of our Saviour Jesus Christ is a canon of
piety and virtue. When then thou hearest word or deed of
His, do not hear it as by the way, or after a simple and
carnal manner, but enter into the depth of His
contemplations, become a communicant in truths mystically
delivered to thee.'" [Note 3]

12.

Moreover, while it is certain that developments of
Revelation proceeded all through the Old Dispensation {68} down to the very end of our Lord's ministry, on the other
hand, if we turn our attention to the beginnings of
Apostolical teaching after His ascension, we shall find
ourselves unable to fix an historical point at which the
growth of doctrine ceased, and the rule of faith was once
for all settled. Not on the day of Pentecost, for St.
Peter had still to learn at Joppa that he was to baptize
Cornelius; not at Joppa and Cæsarea, for St. Paul had to
write his Epistles; not on the death of the last Apostle,
for St. Ignatius had to establish the doctrine of
Episcopacy; not then, nor for centuries after, for the
Canon of the New Testament was still undetermined. Not in
the Creed, which is no collection of definitions, but a
summary of certain credenda, an incomplete
summary, and, like the Lord's Prayer or the Decalogue, a
mere sample of divine truths, especially of the more
elementary. No one doctrine can be named which starts
complete at first, and gains nothing afterwards from the
investigations of faith and the attacks of heresy. The
Church went forth from the old world in haste, as the
Israelites from Egypt "with their dough before it
was leavened, their kneading troughs being bound up in
their clothes upon their shoulders."

13.

Further, the political developments contained in the
historical parts of Scripture are as striking as the
prophetical and the doctrinal. Can any history wear a
more human appearance than that of the rise and growth of
the chosen people to whom I have just referred? What had
been determined in the counsels of the Lord of heaven and
earth from the beginning, what was immutable, what was
announced to Moses in the burning bush, is afterwards
represented as the growth of an idea under successive
emergencies. The Divine Voice in the bush had announced
the Exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt and their {69} entrance into Canaan; and added, as a token of the
certainty of His purpose, "When thou hast brought
forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon
this mountain." Now this sacrifice or festival,
which was but incidental and secondary in the great
deliverance, is for a while the ultimate scope of the
demands which Moses makes upon Pharaoh. "Thou shalt
come, thou and the elders of Israel unto the King of
Egypt, and ye shall say unto him, The Lord God of the
Hebrews hath met with us, and now let us go, we beseech
thee, three days' journey into the wilderness, that we
may sacrifice to the Lord our God." It had been
added that Pharaoh would first refuse their request, but
that after miracles he would let them go altogether, nay
with "jewels of silver and gold, and raiment."

Accordingly the first request of Moses was, "Let
us go, we pray thee, three days' journey into the desert,
and sacrifice unto the Lord our God." Before the
plague of frogs the warning is repeated, "Let My
people go that they may serve Me;" and after it
Pharaoh says, "I will let the people go, that they
may do sacrifice unto the Lord." It occurs again
before the plague of flies; and after it Pharaoh offers
to let the Israelites sacrifice in Egypt, which Moses
refuses on the ground that they will have to
"sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before
their eyes." "We will go three days' journey
into the wilderness," he proceeds, "and
sacrifice to the Lord our God;" and Pharaoh then
concedes their sacrificing in the wilderness,
"only," he says, "you shall not go very
far away." The demand is repeated separately before
the plagues of murrain, hail, and locusts, no mention
being yet made of anything beyond a service or sacrifice
in the wilderness. On the last of these interviews,
Pharaoh asks an explanation, and Moses extends his claim:
"We will go with our young and with our old, with
our sons and with our {70} daughters, with our flocks and with
our herds will we go, for we must hold a feast unto the
Lord." That it was an extension seems plain from
Pharaoh's reply: "Go now ye that are men, and serve
the Lord, for that ye did desire." Upon the plague
of darkness Pharaoh concedes the extended demand,
excepting the flocks and herds; but Moses reminds him
that they were implied, though not expressed in the
original wording: "Thou must give us also sacrifices
and burnt offerings, that we may sacrifice unto the Lord
our God." Even to the last, there was no intimation
of their leaving Egypt for good; the issue was left to be
wrought out by the Egyptians. "All these thy
servants," says Moses, "shall come down unto
me, and bow down themselves unto me, saying, Get thee out
and all the people that follow thee, and after that I
will go out;" and, accordingly, after the judgment
on the first-born, they were thrust out at midnight, with
their flocks and herds, their kneading troughs and their
dough, laden, too, with the spoils of Egypt, as had been
fore-ordained, yet apparently by a combination of
circumstances, or the complication of a crisis. Yet Moses
knew that their departure from Egypt was final, for he
took the bones of Joseph with him; and that conviction
broke on Pharaoh soon, when he and his asked themselves,
"Why have we done this, that we have let Israel go
from serving us?" But this progress of events, vague
and uncertain as it seemed to be, notwithstanding the
miracles which attended it, had been directed by Him who
works out gradually what He has determined absolutely;
and it ended in the parting of the Red Sea, and the
destruction of Pharaoh's host, on his pursuing them.

Moreover, from what occurred forty years afterwards,
when they were advancing upon the promised land, it would
seem that the original grant of territory did not include
the country east of Jordan, held in the event by {71} Reuben,
Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh; at least they
undertook at first to leave Sihon in undisturbed
possession of his country, if he would let them pass
through it, and only on his refusing his permission did
they invade and appropriate it.

14.

6. It is in point to notice also the structure and
style of Scripture, a structure so unsystematic and
various, and a style so figurative and indirect, that no
one would presume at first sight to say what is in it and
what is not. It cannot, as it were, be mapped, or its
contents catalogued; but after all our diligence, to the
end of our lives and to the end of the Church, it must be
an unexplored and unsubdued land, with heights and
valleys, forests and streams, on the right and left of
our path and close about us, full of concealed wonders
and choice treasures. Of no doctrine whatever, which does
not actually contradict what has been delivered, can it
be peremptorily asserted that it is not in Scripture; of
no reader, whatever be his study of it, can it be said
that he has mastered every doctrine which it contains.
Butler's remarks on this subject were just now referred
to. "The more distinct and particular
knowledge," he says, "of those things, the
study of which the Apostle calls 'going on unto
perfection,'" that is, of the more recondite
doctrines of the Gospel, "and of the prophetic parts
of revelation, like many parts of natural and even civil
knowledge, may require very exact thought and careful
consideration. The hindrances too of natural and of
supernatural light and knowledge have been of the same
kind. And as it is owned the whole scheme of Scripture is
not yet understood, so, if it ever comes to be understood
before the 'restitution of all things,' and without
miraculous interpositions, it must be in the same way as
natural knowledge is come at, by the continuance and
progress of {72} learning and of liberty, and by particular
persons attending to, comparing, and pursuing intimations
scattered up and down it, which are overlooked and
disregarded by the generality of the world. For this is
the way in which all improvements are made, by thoughtful
men tracing on obscure hints, as it were, dropped us by
nature accidentally, or which seem to come into our minds
by chance. Nor is it at all incredible that a book, which
has been so long in the possession of mankind, should
contain many truths as yet undiscovered. For all the same
phenomena, and the same faculties of investigation, from
which such great discoveries in natural knowledge have
been made in the present and last age, were equally in
the possession of mankind several thousand years before.
And possibly it might be intended that events, as they
come to pass, should open and ascertain the meaning of
several parts of Scripture." [Note 4] Butler of course was not
contemplating the case of new articles of faith, or
developments imperative on our acceptance, but he surely
bears witness to the probability of developments taking
place in Christian doctrine considered in themselves,
which is the point at present in question.

15.

It may be added that, in matter of fact, all the
definitions or received judgments of the early and
medieval Church rest upon definite, even though sometimes
obscure sentences of Scripture. Thus Purgatory may appeal
to the "saving by fire," and "entering
through much tribulation into the kingdom of God;"
the communication of the merits of the Saints to our
"receiving a prophet's reward" for
"receiving a prophet in the name of a prophet,"
and "a righteous man's reward" for
"receiving a righteous man in the name of a
righteous man;" the Real Presence to "This is
My Body;" Absolution to {73} "Whosesoever sins ye
remit, they are remitted;" Extreme Unction to
"Anointing him with oil in the Name of the
Lord;" Voluntary poverty to "Sell all that thou
hast;" obedience to "He was in subjection to
His parents;" the honour paid to creatures, animate
or inanimate, to Laudate Dominum in sanctis Ejus,
and Adorate scabellum pedum Ejus; and so of the
rest.

16.

7. Lastly, while Scripture nowhere recognizes itself
or asserts the inspiration of those passages which are
most essential, it distinctly anticipates the development
of Christianity, both as a polity and as a doctrine. In
one of our Lord's parables "the Kingdom of Heaven" is even compared to "a grain of mustard-seed,
which a man took and hid in his field; which indeed is
the least of all seeds, but when it is grown it is the
greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree," and, as
St. Mark words it, "shooteth out great branches, so
that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches
thereof." And again, in the same chapter of St.
Mark, "So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should
cast seed into the ground, and should sleep, and rise
night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he
knoweth not how; for the earth bringeth forth fruit of
herself." Here an internal element of life, whether
principle or doctrine, is spoken of rather than any mere
external manifestation; and it is observable that the
spontaneous, as well as the gradual, character of the
growth is intimated. This description of the process
corresponds to what has been above observed respecting
development, viz. that it is not an effect of wishing and
resolving, or of forced enthusiasm, or of any mechanism
of reasoning, or of any mere subtlety of intellect; but
comes of its own innate power of expansion within the
mind in its season, though with the use of reflection and {74} argument and original thought, more or less as it may
happen, with a dependence on the ethical growth of the
mind itself, and with a reflex influence upon it. Again,
the Parable of the Leaven describes the development of
doctrine in another respect, in its active, engrossing,
and interpenetrating power.

17.

From the necessity, then, of the case, from the
history of all sects and parties in religion, and from
the analogy and example of Scripture, we may fairly
conclude that Christian doctrine admits of formal,
legitimate, and true developments, that is, of
developments contemplated by its Divine Author.

The general analogy of the world, physical and moral,
confirms this conclusion, as we are reminded by the great
authority who has already been quoted in the course of
this Section. "The whole natural world and
government of it," says Butler, "is a scheme or
system; not a fixed, but a progressive one; a scheme in
which the operation of various means takes up a great
length of time before the ends they tend to can be
attained. The change of seasons, the ripening of the
fruits of the earth, the very history of a flower is an
instance of this; and so is human life. Thus vegetable
bodies, and those of animals, though possibly formed at
once, yet grow up by degrees to a mature state. And thus
rational agents, who animate these latter bodies, are
naturally directed to form each his own manners and
character by the gradual gaining of knowledge and
experience, and by a long course of action. Our existence
is not only successive, as it must be of necessity, but
one state of our life and being is appointed by God to be
a preparation for another; and that to be the means of
attaining to another succeeding one: infancy to
childhood, childhood to youth, youth to mature age. {75} Men
are impatient, and for precipitating things; but the
Author of Nature appears deliberate throughout His
operations, accomplishing His natural ends by slow
successive steps. And there is a plan of things
beforehand laid out, which, from the nature of it,
requires various systems of means, as well as length of
time, in order to the carrying on its several parts into
execution. Thus, in the daily course of natural
providence, God operates in the very same manner as in
the dispensation of Christianity, making one thing
subservient to another; this, to somewhat farther; and so
on, through a progressive series of means, which extend,
both backward and forward, beyond our utmost view. Of
this manner of operation, everything we see in the course
of nature is as much an instance as any part of the
Christian dispensation." [Note 5]

Section 2. An Infallible
Developing Authority to be Expected

It has now been made probable that developments of
Christianity were but natural, as time went on, and were
to be expected; and that these natural and true
developments, as being natural and true, were of course
contemplated and taken into account by its Author, who in
designing the work designed its legitimate results.
These, whatever they turn out to be, may be called
absolutely "the developments" of Christianity.
That, beyond reasonable doubt, there are such is surely a
great step gained in the inquiry; it is a momentous fact.
The next question is, What are they? and to a
theologian, who could take a general view, and also
possessed an intimate and minute {76} knowledge, of its
history, they would doubtless on the whole be easily
distinguishable by their own characters, and require no
foreign aid to point them out, no external authority to
ratify them. But it is difficult to say who is exactly in
this position. Considering that Christians, from the
nature of the case, live under the bias of the doctrines,
and in the very midst of the facts, and during the
process of the controversies, which are to be the subject
of criticism, since they are exposed to the prejudices of
birth, education, place, personal attachment,
engagements, and party, it can hardly be maintained that
in matter of fact a true development carries with it
always its own certainty even to the learned, or that
history, past or present, is secure from the possibility
of a variety of interpretations.

2.

I have already spoken on this subject, and from a very
different point of view from that which I am taking at
present:

"Prophets or Doctors are the interpreters of the
revelation; they unfold and define its mysteries, they
illuminate its documents, they harmonize its contents,
they apply its promises. Their teaching is a vast system,
not to be comprised in a few sentences, not to be
embodied in one code or treatise, but consisting of a
certain body of Truth, pervading the Church like an
atmosphere, irregular in its shape from its very
profusion and exuberance; at times separate only in idea
from Episcopal Tradition, yet at times melting away into
legend and fable; partly written, partly unwritten,
partly the interpretation, partly the supplement of
Scripture, partly preserved in intellectual expressions,
partly latent in the spirit and temper of Christians;
poured to and fro in closets and upon the housetops, in
liturgies, in controversial works, in obscure fragments,
in sermons, in popular prejudices, in local {77} customs. This
I call Prophetical Tradition, existing primarily in the
bosom of the Church itself, and recorded in such measure
as Providence has determined in the writings of eminent
men. Keep that which is committed to thy charge, is St.
Paul's injunction to Timothy; and for this reason,
because from its vastness and indefiniteness it is
especially exposed to corruption, if the Church fails in
vigilance. This is that body of teaching which is offered
to all Christians even at the present day, though in
various forms and measures of truth, in different parts
of Christendom, partly being a comment, partly an
addition upon the articles of the Creed." [Note 6]

If this be true, certainly some rule is necessary for
arranging and authenticating these various expressions
and results of Christian doctrine. No one will maintain
that all points of belief are of equal importance.
"There are what may be called minor points, which we
may hold to be true without imposing them as
necessary;" "there are greater truths and
lesser truths, points which it is necessary, and points
which it is pious to believe." [Note 7] The simple question is, How
are we to discriminate the greater from the less, the
true from the false.

3.

This need of an authoritative sanction is increased by
considering, after M. Guizot's suggestion, that
Christianity, though represented in prophecy as a
kingdom, came into the world as an idea rather than an
institution, and has had to wrap itself in clothing and
fit itself with armour of its own providing, and to form
the instruments and methods of its prosperity and
warfare. If the developments, which have above been
called moral, are to take place to any great
extent, and without them it is difficult to see how
Christianity can exist at all, if only its relations
towards civil {78} government have to be ascertained, or the
qualifications for the profession of it have to be
defined, surely an authority is necessary to impart
decision to what is vague, and confidence to what is
empirical, to ratify the successive steps of so elaborate
a process, and to secure the validity of inferences which
are to be made the premisses of more remote
investigations.

Tests, it is true, for ascertaining the correctness of
developments in general may be drawn out, as I shall show
in the sequel; but they are insufficient for the guidance
of individuals in the case of so large and complicated a
problem as Christianity, though they may aid our
inquiries and support our conclusions in particular
points. They are of a scientific and controversial, not
of a practical character, and are instruments rather than
warrants of right decisions. Moreover, they rather serve
as answers to objections brought against the actual
decisions of authority, than are proofs of the
correctness of those decisions. While, then, on the one
hand, it is probable that some means will be granted for
ascertaining the legitimate and true developments of
Revelation, it appears, on the other, that these means
must of necessity be external to the developments
themselves.

4.

Reasons shall be given in this Section for concluding
that, in proportion to the probability of true
developments of doctrine and practice in the Divine
Scheme, so is the probability also of the appointment in
that scheme of an external authority to decide upon them,
thereby separating them from the mass of mere human
speculation, extravagance, corruption, and error, in and
out of which they grow. This is the doctrine of the
infallibility of the Church; for by infallibility I
suppose is meant the power {79} of deciding whether this,
that, and a third, and any number of theological or
ethical statements are true.

5.

1. Let the state of the case be carefully considered.
If the Christian doctrine, as originally taught, admits
of true and important developments, as was argued in the
foregoing Section, this is a strong antecedent argument
in favour of a provision in the Dispensation for putting
a seal of authority upon those developments. The
probability of their being known to be true varies with
that of their truth. The two ideas indeed are quite
distinct, I grant, of revealing and of guaranteeing a
truth, and they are often distinct in fact. There are
various revelations all over the earth which do not carry
with them the evidence of their divinity. Such are the
inward suggestions and secret illuminations granted to so
many individuals; such are the traditionary doctrines
which are found among the heathen, that "vague and
unconnected family of religious truths, originally from
God, but sojourning, without the sanction of miracle or a
definite home, as pilgrims up and down the world, and
discernible and separable from the corrupt legends with
which they are mixed, by the spiritual mind alone."
[Note 8]
There is nothing impossible in the notion of a revelation
occurring without evidences that it is a revelation; just
as human sciences are a divine gift, yet are reached by
our ordinary powers and have no claim on our faith. But
Christianity is not of this nature: it is a revelation
which comes to us as a revelation, as a whole,
objectively, and with a profession of infallibility; and
the only question to be determined relates to the matter
of the revelation. If then there are certain great
truths, or duties, or observances, naturally and
legitimately resulting from the doctrines originally
professed, it is but reasonable to include {80} these true
results in the idea of the revelation itself, to consider
them parts of it, and if the revelation be not only true,
but guaranteed as true, to anticipate that they too will
come under the privilege of that guarantee. Christianity,
unlike other revelations of God's will, except the
Jewish, of which it is a continuation, is an objective
religion, or a revelation with credentials; it is
natural, I say, to view it wholly as such, and not partly
sui generis, partly like others. Such as it
begins, such let it be considered to continue; granting
that certain large developments of it are true, they must
surely be accredited as true.

6.

2. An objection, however, is often made to the
doctrine of infallibility in limine, which is too
important not to be taken into consideration. It is urged
that, as all religious knowledge rests on moral evidence,
not on demonstration, our belief in the Church's
infallibility must be of this character; but what can be
more absurd than a probable infallibility, or a certainty
resting on doubt?I believe, because I am sure; and
I am sure, because I suppose. Granting then that the gift
of infallibility be adapted, when believed, to unite all
intellects in one common confession, the fact that it is
given is as difficult of proof as the developments which
it is to prove, and nugatory therefore, and in
consequence improbable in a Divine Scheme. The advocates
of Rome, it has been urged, "insist on the necessity
of an infallible guide in religious matters, as an
argument that such a guide has really been accorded. Now
it is obvious to inquire how individuals are to know with
certainty that Rome is infallible ... how any
ground can be such as to bring home to the mind
infallibly that she is infallible; what conceivable proof
amounts to more than a probability of the fact; and what
advantage is an infallible guide, if those who are to be
guided have, {81} after all, no more than an opinion, as the
Romanists call it, that she is infallible?" [Note 9]

7.

This argument, however, except when used, as is
intended in this passage, against such persons as would
remove all imperfection in the proof of Religion, is
certainly a fallacious one. For since, as all allow, the
Apostles were infallible, it tells against their
infallibility, or the infallibility of Scripture, as
truly as against the infallibility of the Church; for no
one will say that the Apostles were made infallible for
nothing, yet we are only morally certain that they were
infallible. Further, if we have but probable grounds for
the Church's infallibility, we have but the like for the
impossibility of certain things, the necessity of others,
the truth, the certainty of others; and therefore the
words infallibility, necessity, truth,
and certainty ought all of them to be banished
from the language. But why is it more inconsistent to
speak of an uncertain infallibility than of a doubtful
truth or a contingent necessity, phrases which present
ideas clear and undeniable? In sooth we are playing with
words when we use arguments of this sort. When we say
that a person is infallible, we mean no more than that
what he says is always true, always to be believed,
always to be done. The term is resolvable into these
phrases as its equivalents; either then the phrases are
inadmissible, or the idea of infallibility must be
allowed. A probable infallibility is a probable gift of
never erring; a reception of the doctrine of a probable
infallibility is faith and obedience towards a person
founded on the probability of his never erring in his
declarations or commands. What is inconsistent in this
idea? Whatever then be the particular means of
determining infallibility, the abstract objection may be
put aside. [Note
10] {82}

8.

3. Again, it is sometimes argued that such a
dispensation would destroy our probation, as dissipating
doubt, precluding the exercise of faith, and obliging us
to obey whether we wish it or no; and it is urged that a
Divine Voice spoke in the first age, and difficulty and
darkness rest upon all subsequent ones; as if
infallibility and personal judgment were incompatible;
but this is to confuse the subject. We must distinguish
between a revelation and a reception of it, not between
its earlier and later stages. A revelation, in itself
divine, and guaranteed as such, may from first to last be
received, doubted, argued against, perverted, rejected,
by individuals according to the state of mind of each.
Ignorance, misapprehension, unbelief, and other causes,
do not at once cease to operate because the revelation is
in itself true and in its proofs irrefragable. We have
then no warrant at all for saying that an accredited
revelation will exclude the existence of doubts and
difficulties on the part of those whom it addresses, or
dispense with anxious diligence on their part, though it
may in its {83} own nature tend to do so. Infallibility does
not interfere with moral probation; the two notions are
absolutely distinct. It is no objection then to the idea
of a peremptory authority, such as I am supposing, that
it lessens the task of personal inquiry, unless it be an
objection to the authority of Revelation altogether. A
Church, or a Council, or a Pope, or a Consent of Doctors,
or a Consent of Christendom, limits the inquiries of the
individual in no other way than Scripture limits them: it
does limit them; but, while it limits their range, it
preserves intact their probationary character; we are
tried as really, though not on so large a field. To
suppose that the doctrine of a permanent authority in
matters of faith interferes with our free-will and
responsibility is, as before, to forget that there were
infallible teachers in the first age, and heretics and
schismatics in the ages subsequent. There may have been
at once a supreme authority from first to last, and a
moral judgment from first to last. Moreover, those who
maintain that Christian truth must be gained solely by
personal efforts are bound to show that methods, ethical
and intellectual, are granted to individuals sufficient
for gaining it; else the mode of probation they advocate
is less, not more, perfect than that which proceeds upon
external authority. On the whole, then, no argument
against continuing the principle of objectiveness into
the developments of Revelation arises out of the
conditions of our moral responsibility.

9.

4. Perhaps it will be urged that the Analogy of Nature
is against our anticipating the continuance of an
external authority which has once been given; because in
the words of the profound thinker who has already been
cited, "We are wholly ignorant what degree of new
knowledge it were to be expected God would give mankind
by revelation, {84} upon supposition of His affording one; or
how far, and in what way, He would interpose miraculously
to qualify them to whom He should originally make the
revelation for communicating the knowledge given by it,
and to secure their doing it to the age in which they
should live, and to secure its being transmitted to
posterity;" and because "we are not in any sort
able to judge whether it were to be expected that the
revelation should have been committed to writing, or left
to be handed down, and consequently corrupted, by verbal
tradition, and at length sunk under it." [Note 11] But
this reasoning does not apply here, as has already been
observed; it contemplates only the abstract hypothesis of
a revelation, not the fact of an existing revelation of a
particular kind, which may of course in various ways
modify our state of knowledge, by settling some of those
very points which, before it was given, we had no means
of deciding. Nor can it, as I think, be fairly denied
that the argument from analogy in one point of view tells
against anticipating a revelation at all, for an
innovation upon the physical order of the world is by the
very force of the terms inconsistent with its ordinary
course. We cannot then regulate our antecedent view of
the character of a revelation by a test which, applied
simply, overthrows the very notion of a revelation
altogether. Any how, Analogy is in some sort violated by
the fact of a revelation, and the question before us only
relates to the extent of that violation.

10.

I will hazard a distinction here between the facts of
revelation and its principles:the argument from
Analogy is more concerned with its principles than with
its facts. The revealed facts are special and singular,
not analogous, from the nature of the case: but it is
otherwise with the {85} revealed principles; these are common
to all the works of God: and if the Author of Nature be
the Author of Grace, it may be expected that, while the
two systems of facts are distinct and independent, the
principles displayed in them will be the same, and form a
connecting link between them. In this identity of
principle lies the Analogy of Natural and Revealed
Religion, in Butler's sense of the word. The doctrine of
the Incarnation is a fact, and cannot be paralleled by
anything in nature; the doctrine of Mediation is a
principle, and is abundantly exemplified in its
provisions. Miracles are facts; inspiration is a fact;
divine teaching once for all, and a continual teaching,
are each a fact; probation by means of intellectual
difficulties is a principle both in nature and in grace,
and may be carried on in the system of grace either by a
standing ordinance of teaching or by one definite act of
teaching, and that with an analogy equally perfect in
either case to the order of nature; nor can we succeed in
arguing from the analogy of that order against a standing
guardianship of revelation without arguing also against
its original bestowal. Supposing the order of nature once
broken by the introduction of a revelation, the
continuance of that revelation is but a question of
degree; and the circumstance that a work has begun makes
it more probable than not that it will proceed. We have
no reason to suppose that there is so great a distinction
of dispensation between ourselves and the first
generation of Christians, as that they had a living
infallible guidance, and we have not.

The case then stands thus:Revelation has
introduced a new law of divine governance over and above
those laws which appear in the natural course of the
world; and in consequence we are able to argue for the
existence of a standing authority in matters of faith on
the analogy of Nature, and from the fact of Christianity.
Preservation is {86} involved in the idea of creation. As the
Creator rested on the seventh day from the work which He
had made, yet He "worketh hitherto;" so He gave
the Creed once for all in the beginning, yet blesses its
growth still, and provides for its increase. His word
"shall not return unto Him void, but
accomplish" His pleasure. As creation argues
continual governance, so are Apostles harbingers of
Popes.

11.

5. Moreover, it must be borne in mind that, as the
essence of all religion is authority and obedience, so
the distinction between natural religion and revealed
lies in this, that the one has a subjective authority,
and the other an objective. Revelation consists in the
manifestation of the Invisible Divine Power, or in the
substitution of the voice of a Lawgiver for the voice of
conscience. The supremacy of conscience is the essence of
natural religion; the supremacy of Apostle, or Pope, or
Church, or Bishop, is the essence of revealed; and when
such external authority is taken away, the mind falls
back again of necessity upon that inward guide which it
possessed even before Revelation was vouchsafed. Thus,
what conscience is in the system of nature, such is the
voice of Scripture, or of the Church, or of the Holy See,
as we may determine it, in the system of Revelation. It
may be objected, in deed, that conscience is not
infallible; it is true, but still it is ever to be
obeyed. And this is just the prerogative which
controversialists assign to the See of St. Peter; it is
not in all cases infallible, it may err beyond its
special province, but it has in all cases a claim on our
obedience. "All Catholics and heretics," says
Bellarmine, "agree in two things: first, that it is
possible for the Pope, even as pope, and with his own
assembly of councillors, or with General Council, to err
in particular controversies of fact, {87} which chiefly depend
on human information and testimony; secondly, that it is
possible for him to err as a private Doctor, even in
universal questions of right, whether of faith or of
morals, and that from ignorance, as sometimes happens to
other doctors. Next, all Catholics agree in other two
points, not, however, with heretics, but solely with each
other: first, that the Pope with General Council cannot
err, either in framing decrees of faith or general
precepts of morality; secondly, that the Pope when
determining anything in a doubtful matter, whether by
himself or with his own particular Council, whether it
is possible for him to err or not, is to be obeyed by
all the faithful." [Note 12] And as obedience to
conscience, even supposing conscience ill-informed, tends
to the improvement of our moral nature, and ultimately of
our knowledge, so obedience to our ecclesiastical
superior may subserve our growth in illumination and
sanctity, even though he should command what is extreme
or inexpedient, or teach what is external to his
legitimate province.

12.

6. The common sense of mankind does but support a
conclusion thus forced upon us by analogical
considerations. It feels that the very idea of revelation
implies a present informant and guide, and that an
infallible one; not a mere abstract declaration of Truths
unknown before to man, or a record of history, or the
result of an antiquarian research, but a message and a
lesson speaking to this man and that. This is shown by
the popular notion which has prevailed among us since the
Reformation, that the Bible itself is such a guide; and
which succeeded in overthrowing the supremacy of Church
and Pope, for the very reason {88} that it was a rival
authority, not resisting merely, but supplanting it. In
proportion, then, as we find, in matter of fact, that the
inspired volume is not adapted or intended to subserve
that purpose, are we forced to revert to that living and
present Guide, who, at the era of our rejection of her,
had been so long recognized as the dispenser of
Scripture, according to times and circumstances, and the
arbiter of all true doctrine and holy practice to her
children. We feel a need, and she alone of all things
under heaven supplies it. We are told that God has
spoken. Where? In a book? We have tried it and it
disappoints; it disappoints us, that most holy and
blessed gift, not from fault of its own, but because it
is used for a purpose for which it was not given. The
Ethiopian's reply, when St. Philip asked him if he
understood what he was reading, is the voice of nature:
"How can I, unless some man shall guide me?"
The Church undertakes that office; she does what none
else can do, and this is the secret of her power.
"The human mind," it has been said,
"wishes to be rid of doubt in religion; and a
teacher who claims infallibility is readily believed on
his simple word. We see this constantly exemplified in
the case of individual pretenders among ourselves. In
Romanism the Church pretends to it; she rids herself of
competitors by forestalling them. And probably, in the
eyes of her children, this is not the least persuasive
argument for her infallibility, that she alone of all
Churches dares claim it, as if a secret instinct and
involuntary misgivings restrained those rival communions
which go so far towards affecting it." [Note 13] These
sentences, whatever be the errors of their wording,
surely express a great truth. The most obvious answer,
then, to the question, why we yield to the authority of
the Church in the questions and developments of faith,
is, that some authority there must be if there is a
revelation given, and {89} other authority there is none but
she. A revelation is not given, if there be no authority
to decide what it is that is given. In the words of St.
Peter to her Divine Master and Lord, "To whom shall
we go?" Nor must it be forgotten in confirmation,
that Scripture expressly calls the Church "the
pillar and ground of the Truth," and promises her as
by covenant that "the Spirit of the Lord that is
upon her, and His words which He has put in her mouth
shall not depart out of her mouth, nor out of the mouth
of her seed, nor out of the mouth of her seed's seed,
from henceforth and for ever." [Note 14]

13.

7. And if the very claim to infallible arbitration in
religious disputes is of so weighty importance and
interest in all ages of the world, much more is it
welcome at a time like the present, when the human
intellect is so busy, and thought so fertile, and opinion
so manifold. The absolute need of a spiritual supremacy
is at present the strongest of arguments in favour of the
fact of its supply. Surely, either an objective
revelation has not been given, or it has been provided
with means for impressing its objectiveness on the world.
If Christianity be a social religion, as it certainly is,
and if it be based on certain ideas acknowledged as
divine, or a creed, (which shall here be assumed,) and if
these ideas have various aspects, and make distinct
impressions on different minds, and issue in consequence
in a multiplicity of developments, true, or false, or
mixed, as has been shown, what power will suffice to meet
and to do justice to these conflicting conditions, but a
supreme authority ruling and reconciling individual
judgments by a divine right and a recognized wisdom? In
barbarous times the will is reached through the senses;
but in an age in which reason, as it is called, is the
standard of {90} truth and right, it is abundantly evident to
any one, who mixes ever so little with the world, that,
if things are left to themselves, every individual will
have his own view of them, and take his own course; that
two or three will agree today to part company tomorrow;
that Scripture will be read in contrary ways, and
history, according to the apologue, will have to
different comers its silver shield and its golden; that
philosophy, taste, prejudice, passion, party, caprice,
will find no common measure, unless there be some supreme
power to control the mind and to compel agreement.

There can be no combination on the basis of truth
without an organ of truth. As cultivation brings out the
colours of flowers, and domestication changes the
character of animals, so does education of necessity
develope differences of opinion; and while it is
impossible to lay down first principles in which all will
unite, it is utterly unreasonable to expect that this man
should yield to that, or all to one. I do not say there
are no eternal truths, such as the poet proclaims [Note 15],
which all acknowledge in private, but that there are none
sufficiently commanding to be the basis of public union
and action. The only general persuasive in matters of
conduct is authority; that is, (when truth is in
question,) a judgment which we feel to be superior to our
own. If Christianity is both social and dogmatic, and
intended for all ages, it must humanly speaking have an
infallible expounder. Else you will secure unity of form
at the loss of unity of doctrine, or unity of doctrine at
the loss of unity of form; you will have to choose
between a comprehension of opinions and a resolution into
parties, between latitudinarian and sectarian error. You
may be tolerant or intolerant of contrarieties of
thought, but contrarieties you will have. By the Church
of England a hollow uniformity is preferred to an
infallible chair; and {91} by the sects of England, an
interminable division. Germany and Geneva began with
persecution, and have ended in scepticism. The doctrine
of infallibility is a less violent hypothesis than this
sacrifice either of faith or of charity. It secures the
object, while it gives definiteness and force to the
matter, of the Revelation.

14.

8. I have called the doctrine of Infallibility an
hypothesis: let it be so considered for the sake of
argument, that is, let it be considered to be a mere
position, supported by no direct evidence, but required
by the facts of the case, and reconciling them with each
other. That hypothesis is indeed, in matter of fact,
maintained and acted on in the largest portion of
Christendom, and from time immemorial; but let this
coincidence be accounted for by the need. Moreover, it is
not a naked or isolated fact, but the animating principle
of a large scheme of doctrine which the need itself could
not simply create; but again, let this system be merely
called its development. Yet even as an hypothesis, which
has been held by one out of various communions, it may
not be lightly put aside. Some hypothesis, this or that,
all parties, all controversialists, all historians must
adopt, if they would treat of Christianity at all.
Gieseler's "Text Book" bears the profession of
being a dry analysis of Christian history; yet on
inspection it will be found to be written on a positive
and definite theory, and to bend facts to meet it. An
unbeliever, as Gibbon, assumes one hypothesis, and an
Ultra-montane, as Baronias, adopts another. The School of
Hurd and Newton hold, as the only true view of history,
that Christianity slept for centuries upon centuries,
except among those whom historians call heretics. Others
speak as if the oath of supremacy or the congé
d'élire could be made the measure of St. Ambrose,
and they fit the Thirty-nine {92} Articles on the fervid
Tertullian. The question is, which of all these theories
is the simplest, the most natural, the most persuasive.
Certainly the notion of development under infallible
authority is not a less grave, a less winning hypothesis,
than the chance and coincidence of events, or the
Oriental Philosophy, or the working of Antichrist, to
account for the rise of Christianity and the formation of
its theology.

Section 3. The Existing
Developments of Doctrine the Probable Fulfilment of that
Expectation

I have been arguing, in respect to the revealed
doctrine, given to us from above in Christianity, first,
that, in consequence of its intellectual character, and
as passing through the minds of so many generations of
men, and as applied by them to so many purposes, and as
investigated so curiously as to its capabilities,
implications, and bearings, it could not but grow or
develope, as time went on, into a large theological
system;next, that, if development must be, then,
whereas Revelation is a heavenly gift, He who gave it
virtually has not given it, unless He has also secured it
from perversion and corruption, in all such development
as comes upon it by the necessity of its nature, or, in
other words, that that intellectual action through
successive generations, which is the organ of
development, must, so far forth as it can claim to have
been put in charge of the Revelation, be in its
determinations infallible.

Passing from these two points, I come next to the
question whether in the history of Christianity there is
any fulfilment of such anticipation as I have insisted
on, {93} whether in matter-of-fact doctrines, rites, and
usages have grown up round the Apostolic Creed and have
interpenetrated its Articles, claiming to be part of
Christianity and looking like those additions which we
are in search of. The answer is, that such additions
there are, and that they are found just where they might
be expected, in the authoritative seats and homes of old
tradition, the Latin and Greek Churches. Let me enlarge
on this point.

2.

I observe, then, that, if the idea of Christianity, as
originally given to us from heaven, cannot but contain
much which will be only partially recognized by us as
included in it and only held by us unconsciously; and if
again, Christianity being from heaven, all that is
necessarily involved in it, and is evolved from it, is
from heaven, and if, on the other hand, large accretions
actually do exist, professing to be its true and
legitimate results, our first impression naturally is,
that these must be the very developments which they
profess to be. Moreover, the very scale on which they
have been made, their high antiquity yet present promise,
their gradual formation yet precision, their harmonious
order, dispose the imagination most forcibly towards the
belief that a teaching so consistent with itself, so well
balanced, so young and so old, not obsolete after so many
centuries, but vigorous and progressive still, is the
very development contemplated in the Divine Scheme. These
doctrines are members of one family, and suggestive, or
correlative, or confirmatory, or illustrative of each
other. One furnishes evidence to another, and all to each
of them; if this is proved, that becomes probable; if
this and that are both probable, but for different
reasons, each adds to the other its own probability. The
Incarnation is the antecedent of the doctrine of
Mediation, and the archetype both of the Sacramental {94} principle and of the merits of Saints. From the doctrine
of Mediation follow the Atonement, the Mass, the merits
of Martyrs and Saints, their invocation and cultus.
From the Sacramental principle come the Sacraments
properly so called; the unity of the Church, and the Holy
See as its type and centre; the authority of Councils;
the sanctity of rites; the veneration of holy places,
shrines, images, vessels, furniture, and vestments. Of
the Sacraments, Baptism is developed into Confirmation on
the one hand; into Penance, Purgatory, and Indulgences on
the other; and the Eucharist into the Real Presence,
adoration of the Host, Resurrection of the body, and the
virtue of relics. Again, the doctrine of the Sacraments
leads to the doctrine of Justification; Justification to
that of Original Sin; Original Sin to the merit of
Celibacy. Nor do these separate developments stand
independent of each other, but by cross relations they
are connected, and grow together while they grow from
one. The Mass and Real Presence are parts of one; the
veneration of Saints and their relics are parts of one;
their intercessory power and the Purgatorial State, and
again the Mass and that State are correlative; Celibacy
is the characteristic mark of Monachism and of the
Priesthood. You must accept the whole or reject the
whole; attenuation does but enfeeble, and amputation
mutilate. It is trifling to receive all but something
which is as integral as any other portion; and, on the
other hand, it is a solemn thing to accept any part, for,
before you know where you are, you may be carried on by a
stern logical necessity to accept the whole.

3.

Next, we have to consider that from first to last
other developments there are none, except those which
have possession of Christendom; none, that is, of
prominence and permanence sufficient to deserve the name.
In early {95} times the heretical doctrines were confessedly
barren and short-lived, and could not stand their ground
against Catholicism. As to the medieval period I am not
aware that the Greeks present more than a negative
opposition to the Latins. And now in like manner the
Tridentine Creed is met by no rival developments; there
is no antagonist system. Criticisms, objections,
protests, there are in plenty, but little of positive
teaching anywhere; seldom an attempt on the part of any
opposing school to master its own doctrines, to
investigate their sense and bearing, to determine their
relation to the decrees of Trent and their distance from
them. And when at any time this attempt is by chance in
any measure made, then an incurable contrariety does but
come to view between portions of the theology thus
developed, and a war of principles; an impossibility
moreover of reconciling that theology with the general
drift of the formularies in which its elements occur, and
a consequent appearance of unfairness and sophistry in
adventurous persons who aim at forcing them into
consistency [Note
16]; and, further, a prevalent understanding of the
truth of this representation, authorities keeping
silence, eschewing a hopeless enterprise and discouraging
it in others, and the people plainly intimating that they
think both doctrine and usage, antiquity and development,
of very little matter at all; and, lastly, the evident
despair of even the better sort of men, who, in
consequence, when they set great schemes on foot, as for
the conversion of the heathen world, are afraid to
agitate the question of the doctrines to which it is to
be converted, lest through the opened door they should
lose what they have, instead of gaining what they have
not. To the weight of recommendation which this contrast
throws upon the developments commonly called Catholic,
must be added the {96} argument which arises from the
coincidence of their consistency and permanence, with
their claim of an infallible sanction,a claim, the
existence of which, in some quarter or other of the
Divine Dispensation, is, as we have already seen,
antecedently probable. All these things being considered,
I think few persons will deny the very strong presumption
which exists, that, if there must be and are in fact
developments in Christianity, the doctrines propounded by
successive Popes and Councils through so many ages, are
they.

4.

A further presumption in behalf of these doctrines
arises from the general opinion of the world about them.
Christianity being one, all its doctrines are necessarily
developments of one, and, if so, are of necessity
consistent with each other, or form a whole. Now the
world fully enters into this view of those well-known
developments which claim the name of Catholic. It allows
them that title, it considers them to belong to one
family, and refers them to one theological system. It is
scarcely necessary to set about proving what is urged by
their opponents even more strenuously than by their
champions. Their opponents avow that they protest, not
against this doctrine or that, but against one and all;
and they seem struck with wonder and perplexity, not to
say with awe, at a consistency which they feel to be
superhuman, though they would not allow it to be divine.
The system is confessed on all hands to bear a character
of integrity and indivisibility upon it, both at first
view and on inspection. Hence such sayings as the
"Tota jacet Babylon" of the distich. Luther did
but a part of the work, Calvin another portion, Socinus
finished it. To take up with Luther, and to reject Calvin
and Socinus, would be, according to that epigram, like
living in a house without a roof to it. This, I say, is {97} no private judgment of this man or that, but the common
opinion and experience of all countries. The two great
divisions of religion feel it, Roman Catholic and
Protestant, between whom the controversy lies; sceptics
and liberals, who are spectators of the conflict, feel
it; philosophers feel it. A school of divines there is, I
grant, dear to memory, who have not felt it; and their
exception will have its weight,till we reflect that
the particular theology which they advocate has not the
prescription of success, never has been realized in fact,
or, if realized for a moment, had no stay; moreover,
that, when it has been enacted by human authority, it has
scarcely travelled beyond the paper on which it was
printed, or out of the legal forms in which it was
embodied. But, putting the weight of these revered names
at the highest, they do not constitute more than an
exception to the general rule, such as is found in every
subject that comes into discussion.

5.

And this general testimony to the oneness of
Catholicism extends to its past teaching relatively to
its present, as well as to the portions of its present
teaching one with another. No one doubts, with such
exception as has just been allowed, that the Roman
Catholic communion of this day is the successor and
representative of the Medieval Church, or that the
Medieval Church is the legitimate heir of the Nicene;
even allowing that it is a question whether a line cannot
be drawn between the Nicene Church and the Church which
preceded it. On the whole, all parties will agree that,
of all existing systems, the present communion of Rome is
the nearest approximation in fact to the Church of the
Fathers, possible though some may think it, to be nearer
still to that Church on paper. Did St. Athanasius or St.
Ambrose come suddenly to life, it cannot be doubted what
communion he would take to be his {98} own. All surely will
agree that these Fathers, with whatever opinions of their
own, whatever protests, if we will, would find themselves
more at home with such men as St. Bernard or St. Ignatius
Loyola, or with the lonely priest in his lodging, or the
holy sisterhood of mercy, or the unlettered crowd before
the altar, than with the teachers or with the members of
any other creed. And may we not add, that were those same
Saints, who once sojourned, one in exile, one on embassy,
at Treves, to come more northward still, and to travel
until they reached another fair city, seated among
groves, green meadows, and calm streams, the holy
brothers would turn from many a high aisle and solemn
cloister which they found there, and ask the way to some
small chapel where mass was said in the populous alley or
forlorn suburb? And, on the other hand, can any one who
has but heard his name, and cursorily read his history,
doubt for one instant how, in turn, the people of
England, "we, our princes, our priests, and our
prophets," Lords and Commons, Universities,
Ecclesiastical Courts, marts of commerce, great towns,
country parishes, would deal with
Athanasius,Athanasius, who spent his long years in
fighting against sovereigns for a theological term?

10. ["It is very common to
confuse infallibility with certitude, but the two words
stand for things quite distinct from each other. I
remember for certain what I did yesterday, but still my
memory is not infallible. I am quite clear that two and
two makes four, but I often make mistakes in long
addition sums. I have no doubt whatever that John or
Richard is my true friend; but I have before now trusted
those who failed me, and I may do so again before I die.
I am quite certain that Victoria is our sovereign, and
not her father, the Duke of Kent, without any claim
myself to the gift of infallibility, as I may do a
virtuous action, without being impeccable. I may be
certain that the Church is infallible, while I am myself
a fallible mortal; otherwise I cannot be certain that the
Supreme Being is infallible, unless I am infallible
myself. Certitude is directed to one or other definite
concrete proposition. I am certain of propositions one,
two, three, four, or five, one by one, each by itself. I
can be certain of one of them, without being certain of
the rest: that I am certain of the first makes it neither
likely nor unlikely that I am certain of the second: but,
were I infallible, then I should be certain, not only of
one of them, but of all."Essay on Assent, ch.
vii. sect. 2.]Return to text

12. De Rom. Pont. iv. 2. [Seven
years ago, it is scarcely necessary to say, the Vatican
Council determined that the Pope, ex cathedrâ, has
the same infallibility as the Church. This does not
affect the argument in the text.]Return to text